In related news, PCMag yesterday published results of their 2013 Business Choice Awards, a survey of “actual users of smartphones” and “those responsible for deploying and maintaining the devices”.

The conclusion for Nokia is that the company is doing very well with those customers. So much so that PCMag called Nokia “…the clear winner of the end-user Business Choice Award for smartphones.”

Source: PCMag Business Choice Awards 2013

The results, shown above and below in user feedback data, demonstrate just how much people really enjoy their Lumias:

“Nokia had the highest ratings in every end-user satisfaction measure in which it had sufficient responses in our survey…The company received average ratings of 9.0 or higher for satisfaction with several business-related tasks including email, messaging, calendars and scheduling, and voice communications, which undoubtedly contributed to its 9.0 rating for likelihood to recommend.”

That’s quite impressive as Nokia (Average score: 8.8 out of 10) was put up against the likes of Samsung (second with 8.6) and Apple (third with 8.5), in addition to HTC, LG and BlackBerry (who was rated the lowest with 6.9).

Source: PCMag Business Choice Awards 2013

There is a flip side though. Nokia and Windows Phone in general had so little mass-deployment that IT administrators could not comment on its reliability for PCMag’s survey. That confirms the old story: people love Windows Phone when they have them, but not nearly enough do. Luckily, Nokia is working on that problem as Delta Airlines is deploying the Lumia 820 to more than 19,000 of its flight attendants and in general, they are getting more aggressive in courting enterprise.

The other negative news for Nokia was that they earned the second highest repair rate, tied with HTC: 14 percent of units needed fixing within the last year. But PCMag highlights how that number did not interfere with Nokia’s "satisfaction with reliability" rating. In fact, despite having the second highest repair rate, Nokia scored an 8.9 (out of 10) for reliability—higher than Samsung and Apple and still winning in that category.

Overall, Windows Phone as a brand is doing quite well. People who have it generally love it. The problem is getting that message out there so that more people can experience the “delightful” UI and features that Microsoft offers.

But, they don't matter as much as the hundreds of millions who have yet to become tied to a platform.. IOW, those who have yet to switch from feature to Smartphone.. That's where WP will surpass IOS sooner than what's being reported..

yes.. the people still having a feature phone are the ones bringing a community forward because they care so so much about modern IT devices .. do you actually believe the stuff you are writing all the time?

Indeed, if Windows Phone is so awful, why does everyone who actually uses it (not biased "reviewers"), love it?
I've not yet met a real life dissatisfied Windows Phone users. Sadly, as this article mentions, Windows Phone users are hard to come by, far and few in between.

More and more ppl seem to be using them though. At my high school today, I heard the "charging" sound from one of the coach's office. Also, I have seen a number of students using wp7 and wp8 phones. I even saw my first 1020 in an airport not to long ago.

At my high school, only about 10 Windows Phones in circulation amongst a sea of thousands of iPhones and Androids. I'm the biggest campaigner for Windows Phone in my school, I ruthlessly pitch it and support it.

And today at lunch I saw a kid using a Surface, keyboard and all, at lunch. While the condition is improving, we have a long ways to go. Most kids here mindlessly buy an iPhone, and haven't even heard of Windows Phone. I'm working on changing that, but it's a long ways to go.

I live in a "fashion" area in Beijing. The place is always packed with world-famous artists, designers, photographers and models. Nokias are the ONLY phones you'll see around here. iPhone is for old folks and Samsung is pianyi (cheap/tacky).

Ha ha! That's amazing! But it does seem fitting. Nokia has found an awesome way to balance stylish but fun, durable yet appealing, eye catching but not obnoxious. They deserve some real props for making a stand with a bold new design in a world of otherwise same looking rectangles. Granted, there will come a day when the current Nokia design will become old overused, but for now, we'll embrace what's currently the newest (good) design on scene.

I don't need to use something to know it's not the best option, though. Until it can do everything my Android phone or iPad can, then it's not worth it. I shouldn't have to give up ANYTHING to switch platforms. Right now I have to give up a lot.
And before anyone asks, I'd have to give up controlling my home theater, Roku, Plex, depositing to my credit union, using my phone as a POS for work, accessing Google Drive files (easily) for work, and the list goes on longer than I care to type.

Not that this even justifies a response, but you're clearly heavily invested in the Android ecosystem, with a host of needs that are specific to you. There are millions of people who are open to switching platforms.
Your statement should have been, "it's not the best option for you".

I think partially that's because people who are a fan of Microsoft, those who visit WPCentral regurlarly for example, have Windows Phones and they (we) have this aversion to Android and iPhone so when asked, we reply "ours is the best". I am not sure how reliable the conclusion is when the owners of WP are the ones who loved it before they got it, and knew what was going on. It's not like WP is so big that everyone has it and considers it "the phone" and then thinks clearly abour what they like and dislike about it.
Put simply, those who own WP currenly are WP enthusiasts, and they respond very positively in all categories.

I think you're correct for about this for the most part but I'm in the minority I guess. I was just given a Nokia 928 by my company to replace the company issued iPhone 4S i was carrying and it took me all of one weekend to realize that I liked it a lot better than my iPhone. Ease of use, messaging, email, contacts (I can actually create a group distribution list!), etc...All better with WP8 in my opinion.

IDK.. Red and silver, Blue and silver, and yellow and silver all look pretty good together... Silver goes with just about anything.. A 925 with a red back would look great, and I'm sure a lot of others would think the same..

They should at least make the back colors available to order in different colors, because I have a pretty good eye, and what I'm imagining would look awesome... Anyways,, poor NIST has a tummy ache... IOW,, he's being a little bitch tonite... He's probably at one of his "rallies".... Lol❕

Eye of the Beholder I guess.
I won't pickup a new Windows Phone unless it had wireless charging built it. Some call it a gimmick but I have seriously become far to accustomed to it that I loathe plugging in my phone.
...and no the whole back plate add-on is a joke. In my opinion it completely ruins the simplicity and overall beauty of the Nokia devices.

Sorry, just re-read your post. I thought you were saying that the different colored back plates were not available. But, on reading it again I see you were talking about the polycarbonate back itself and not the plates.

I have the phone and the wireless charging cover and as useful as wireless charging is some times ... the cover ruins the design of the phone. On it's own the 925 is great to hold and has a really good premium feel, the charging cover eliminates all of the great feel for a marginally useful feature.

That stinks. Have you ever been able to compare the 925 with the cover to a 920? I have a 920 which I love, just thought that even with the cover the 925 might still be a tad thinner plus a bit nicer camera...

Agreed, one of my favorite phones too! I'm passing on the 1020 (free to move about as I'm on prepaid now) because I like the Lumia 925 so much. Slim, aluminum touches, and best of all... Small bezel at the bottom!!! Cannot stand the huge bezel on the other Lumias when I can choose between them and the 925. If the 1020 had a smaller bottom bezel, I'd be all over the white one right now though, haha.

Another satisfied 925 owner here (since june). Best phone I've ever had :)
I have 4-5 personal converts, both friends and family. Maybe 15 friends total with WP. And my company have Lumia's as standard phones for everyone (at least in my country, not sure about the rest of the world, we're 1 100 here but 170 000 worldwide).

I have the 920, and want to check out the 925, but I don't upgrade till march 2014... I already bought this off contract, because I was an early adopter of the 900. I'm also very satisfied with the 920, and am anxious to see what's out by the time I can renew my contract.

As far as specs go the 1520 will do for me,, but I want innovation, and I'm not sure it's gonna be the most innovative device... Some of us WP users have come to expect more innovation than your so called hardcoded Android fan... All they expect is more of the same thing... We expect a boat load of new things... But, Lumiasoft won't be able to keep up that pace forever, and I don't expect every new device to have as much innovation as the 920 did when it came out... The 920 had more innovation in a single device than any Smartphone in history❗❗... I wonder if they can do it again...

I like the idea of the 1520, but I believe it to be a modest proposal. I think they will continue with that form factor and come out with a higher end device by the time I am eligible for upgrade. Think of the 1520 as equal to the 920 and their next one equal to the 1020 in terms of improvements. I could probably rock the 6" form factor since I am tall and have big hands, but I've never tried before, so I don't know. I do know that so far bigger has been better, and every time someone hands me an iPhone to watch a video, I cringe, and then squint (and die a little sooner) to make out what im seeing. I just don't know when bigger will become too big for me... And that IS what she said!

I guess, we as end users, have to do like Appefans (ops fans) did in the past. Spread the word, spread how passionate is our community, our devs, our applications, our hardware.

I was siting in a nice pub on my city (Brazil) and we put our phones on the table, in order to avoid texting and etc using our phones. But when I put my lumia 520 ( a budget phone have to say) near a galaxy, razr and iphone, my friends asked what a nice phone I got. They started to play with it, try the features. They said WOW. Then the big shot, I asked them how much they believe my phone costs? Mostly of them said prices that was 3 or 4 times the price I payed.

Specially because no one matches the Lumia 520 price and specs. The closest competitor is a RAZR D1, a cheap android offering, with a single core, powervr 531, mediatek (chinese) running a Jelly bean, with 4gb of memory (only 2 avaliable), with 5mp camera, that records 480p videos (3gp format). Same price of a Lumia 520, this razr d1 from Motorola.

Sorry, I didn't mean to be homophobic, because fag in portuguese is a word that gain another meaning. It is close to cabron in spanish. And Fag is a bad word, even for gays. But Anyway someone edited before me, when I realized that. Sorry anyway.

lol...She bought in United States this summer. She bought for $599 there. Here in Brazil is about 900 $, the same unlocked phone. My Lumia 520, I paid 200 $ unlocked. Brazil is brutal. And she said that was not willing to buy a new phone to me (even that I could send her money).

Low sales temper the user reviews somewhat. You'd expect reviews to be good because the userbase is a self-selecting niche of WP fans. Of course we love our phones. Given a broader user base, you'd expect more avg reviews.

Data suggests that Microsoft is winning with 1st time smartphone buyers, not switchers. I'm not sure how that makes them "self selecting niche of WP fans" though.

Going further, research has shown users are much more likely to take the time to write a negative review than a positive one.

I think it's okay to admit it: people with Windows Phones are generally happy with the experience. Nokia's research has even shown owners of yellow Lumias are more satisfied than those with black Lumias (as per a convo I had with a Nokia exec).

I get where you are going with that but it simply is not true. Even though market share is low it is still a huge number of people. Not even most people using WP are a niche group of WP fans. The vast majority are regular joe users such as my dad or my 60 year old co-worker. These people are not WP fanboys they are just regular people that are happy with their smartphone because it works well not because they greatly prefer Microsoft to any other brand.

At first I was a little hesitant to switch from ios to wp8. I had gone through 2 gems of iPhones, have an ATV and a mac mini. But I jumped anyways, apple (phone) was becoming boring and redundant. I jumped on my L920 and haven't looked back. Its much more fresh than ios. Don't get me wrong, my desktop will never be anything less than the fruit (Lightroom and PSCS6 FLY on Macs) but I'm a firm believer in WP8 and Nokia.

Welcome to windows. I would offer this piece of info... My computer runs PSCS6 faster than my brothers MacBook pro, and his crashes with his giant 400dpi image's, but still buttery smooth on my windows PC, and mine cost about $1000 less than his. For the money, you get more bang for your buck with windows based machines, even in post processing, editing all forms of media. And since Studio Pro and Final Cut Pro are all on Windows now, there is no real separation in capability of mac vs windows. Just my two cents.

There is absolutely no performance advantage to running Lightroom or PSCS6 on a Mac. In fact, the 64 bit version of PS has been available longer (and is more mature) on Windows. Notably, Adobe also did not fix the microsize font issue in Lightroom after release of Macs with Retina displays but after 1080P displays became more common in Windows machines. There is nothing inadequte about performance on a Mac but it is also a myth héld by Mac users that there is any performance benefit.

i really love my lumia 920... but i have to admit i also quite like some of the new ios 7 features... microsoft and nokia should really improve a thing or two...
looking forward to a new mobile office version...

I would say about right. Had to send in Lumia 900 for bad capacitive buttons. Search button and voice command open up by themselves. Second return was for the dust in the front camera for the Lumia 920.

The high repair rate and high satisfaction is because Nokia says "Sure, bring that phone to us," even if it isn't broken. They really don't mind, even in some cases ask for people to send their phone so they can have your's to make future ones better.

Actually the high repair rate is because, nice though they may be, there have been quality control issues with each model release. This is also the case with every other phone on the market; however, a smaller sample of users magnifies sampling error. It is no better or worse than any other product, but it is also not because Nokia is made up of nice guys who just love to make people happy. By that logic, Apple would have the highest repair rates of all since they are the most willing to swap phones and tablets. This is just sampling error and nothing more....

I have a Lumia 822 and gladly promote wp8 to my friends.A husband and wife couple, both iPhone people, switched to the Lumia 920 and were blown away by the platform. They now tell they're friends. It's all about networking kids! Word of mouth is still the best promotion!

I had Omnia 7 for two years then upgraded to Lumia 920 in January. My efforts to promote Lumia/WP were successful when I managed to convince my two cousins to buy Lumia 920 and Lumia 925. They are extremely happy with their choices.

The problem is those who only use phones for calls and text but in their opinion iPhone is best because everybody wants it. Also it holds the price which is indication of good product otherwise they don't know anything about it.

i've got the 822, talked my boss to get this phone for him and me for work, we were using Android. Love so much i got my gf to switch from iphone to an 822. She loves it too! When my Verizon contract is up, will probable head to Tmobile so i can get the 925...love the design much better than what Verizon is offering. But who knows what else big red will offer in Dec.

Have an L920 loved it since the first day I brought it, got the red one the color is bold and beautiful.. Love WP soooo happy its getting the credit it deserves. Now im waiting on the bandit take my money now...

Exceedingly happy with my 920. Excellent hardware, a very good camera and now, post-Amber, even better!!
I use my wireless charger in the office. It never fails to get a response "Wow! How does it do that???" I just smile......

This forum has a lot of WP8 fans, so I don't mean to start a flame war.

WP8 is lacking in a lot of usability features. I hopped on the bandwagon the day I could buy a 920 on release.

To me, Microsoft has been a letdown. They should have been patching the ongoing issues with the phone. The sync for WP8 is the worst I've seen in over a decade.

To make an analogy, the Microsoft car would look great and some things would be better than the Apple car or the Android car. But the MS car would have wipers that only run at one speed.

It isn't horrible, but I get frustrated at the lack of the small stuff. Like why wont the phone remember what I was listening to and let me continue anytime with my Bluetooth or inline headphone control? On my old iPhone, I could go and press tye play control and it would immediately continue whatever I was listening to a year ago when I switched to WP8. On my 920, just writing this is enough time for WP8 to forget. Now I have to drill into whatevermedia app I was using and restart my media.

All this I would forgive if Microsoft was actively trying to fix it. I don't want a,big OS every 1.5 to 2 years, I want quarterly patches.

From mt perspective, MS tries a bit with new customers, but has,left existing users wondering when WP8 will have the polish that iOS and even Android have.

I know I'm not alone in feeling Microsoft hasn't been nearly responsive enough.

You know a lot of features I think got pushed back to later updates like GDR3 and 8.1 because Nokia needed to compete on the hardware level. Because Nokia needed this done like yesterday they pushed MSFT to do that first and this caused delays in other features getting finished up and released. Sucks but I like the better hardware first..

I feels the same way; they occasionally need to iron out the little stuff, like the other storage or make writing easier to edit ice its been written. (IOS has a good typing implementation but horrible autocorrect, Wp8 has a good spellck and predictive text but bad editing after typing a word)

Partially agree with you,
i think WP8 has problem managing music through BT.
1) Listening songs on BT, Pandora/Nokia Music.
2) Turn it off using BT.
3) Switch off BT.
4) Suddenly phone will start playing songs through the speakers with out any user input. (tried variuos times to make sure that this is a bug)
5) i didnt try this with songs on the phone, i stopped syncing songs to my phone since they replased Zune with crap box.
6) we should report this BUG to MS, i dont know how.
another biggest limitation is enterprise WiFi, MS is an enterprise sofftware company & there is no support for Enterprise WiFi (i can connect iPhone, Android but not WP8 to WiFi at work)

They may have been second in phone faults, but they were fast to fix the problem. I had a Samsung break and they tried to blame me. I had an iPhone 4 and the reception sucked and Steve Jobs blamed us for not holding the phone correctly :p Screw them, Go Nokia and Microsoft, kick their butts!

Like myself, i have made four mates of mine to use windows phone,even though they using 7.x they always commend the stability of the OS,one said the OS is very soft and flat that it flies just by a touch.Welldone NOKIA.

The wvershelming theme here is NOKIA. I see more positive points about the Nokia innovations and quality. My genuine hope is that starting in 2014, Microsoft continues with the name, the quality and respects the reputation of Nokia.

I have the 928 and love it. I have not directly influenced anyone to jump ship but just leaving the phone in full view does the job for me.

I had a house mate who I wanted to try and convince to go windows phone, but she just didnt' even want to try it. So some people are just too afraid of change. I didn't really respond when she mentioned she could install a windows phone type launcher if she wanted that experience. Ironically, about a year later she gets a laptop with window 8 and loves it.

Now MS & Nokia needs to figureout how they can use this to their advantage and increase market share, i think the main problem with Windows phone is MS has too much baggage & it is fancy/cool to HATE anything MS does.

when i got my first windows 7 phone nobody i new had a windows phone, now i know more people with windows phones than android or apple! and thats in the space of 2 1/2 years and most have nokia phones.